Today we're going into another new genre: contemporary Korean pop (aka everyone's enemy, kpop).
You know how this blog works: I'm not going to introduce you to bad music. So go ahead and throw away all the misconceptions you have regarding kpop. You might have the idea that it's vapid, boring, too mainstream, too manufactured... and I'd say for the vast majority of stuff out there, you're not necessarily wrong. But for (most of) this album, you would be wrong.
Girl's Generation was the kpop girl group. Before BTS, before Blackpink, before Red Velvet, before EXO, before SHINee, before Big Bang, even before 2NE1... there was Girl's Generation. Also known as SNSD (the abbreviation of the group's name in Korean, Sonyeo Sidae), SM Entertainment's biggest group absolutely ruled the industry for an entire decade. Their second single "Gee" was the most popular song of the 2000s in South Korea.
(Gee was also the first kpop song to break 100 million views on YouTube, and was the most viewed music video on there for some time before Gangnam Style ever happened).
With nine members, ten studio albums/EPs, and countless live albums / repackages, it's not an exaggeration at all to say SNSD seriously shaped the kpop industry into the beast it has become now in the late 2010s.
Their influence can be seen everywhere. SNSD (along with their male counterparts Super Junior, who also shattered records for years in their prime) set the standard for charming and cutesy super groups of pop idols. They've got nine members, all with their own hyper-trained talents and appeals specifically curated to achieve maximum audience obsession and musical power. Though SNSD blew up to fame by exploring basic cutesy bubblegum pop, with each new album they went further and further into experimentation and solidifying their individual sound.
I GOT A BOY is my favorite album of their discography. In my opinion it's a super strong mix of eclectic genre experimentation on rock-solid pop music structures, with a number of great and unique hits you won't get anywhere else in their releases, a shot in the dark that succeeds sonically more than it fails. Going into this album expecting a basic collection of pop songs is going to lead to a largely pleasant surprise!
I remember when 2012 ended, and the world didn't. Something about surviving an ancient Mayan apocalyptic superstition made the rest of the future seem fresh, hopeful, full of bright and exciting potential. (Then 2016 came along and ruined everything, but that's a different story...) "I Got A Boy" (the title track, not the album) burst into the world on January 1st, and it immediately drew ire and admiration alike for its bold leaps and risky transitions. The music video is balls to the wall ridiculous, with a hundred different outfits and set styles that only highlight the various beats and tempo changes within the same song. It's chaotic, it's messy, but it's exciting and full of life, and for the once-biggest kpop group in the world this is an incredibly new thing.
If you remember anything about how big SNSD was - and therefore how difficult it would be to justify them taking so many risks with this - you're probably starting to grasp just how significant this song was for the state of kpop.
That's only one of IGAB's songs, and you either hate it or love it. The same goes for much of the album, which I believe can be reasonably split into two camps: experimental and safe.
The "safe" songs are those with which a typical pop addict could play and bop along to without any grimaces or eyebrow-raising moments. Right after "IGAB" in the tracklist comes "Dancing Queen", one of the lead singles, a retro-themed power ballad that never really makes any of the big risks the main song does. "Baby Maybe" trails along what could be an early 2000s Chris Brown instrumental, all forced heartstrings-tugging and perfectly harmonized smooth vocal melodies. "Promise" is a straight up boring ballad (you guys know I hate most ballads). "Look at Me" (no XXX) is saccharine hyper pop thrown into a blender for 3 minutes straight.
Really there's not a lot wrong with all of these "safer" songs, they're just less creative and exciting than the title track, which I'm not really surprised about considering... this is mainstream kpop we're talking about.
But when this album starts to experiment, things get really interesting. "Talk Talk" is an infectious hip-hop / dance track with one of the best hooks on the album, very addictive and of course well-produced. "Express 999" is probably the best song on the album besides the title track, going from anxious dance production to a striking and even intense midsection with lots of dense parts and fun delivery. (In my opinion, this should have been the second single alongside "IGAB", but I'm not surprised SM went with something more easily digestible.)
"Lost in Love", a duet with members Taeyeon and Tiffany - two of the more vocally powerful members who formed 2/3 of the subunit TaeTisSeo created just months before the release of this album - manages to be the most interesting ballad on the album... though it is still just a ballad. "XYZ" is far from abstract in terms of structure, but manages to stand out with its quirky instrumental and fun delivery; it's catchy without seeming like it's trying to be. Rounding off the tracklist is "Romantic St.", another retro-inspired track that feels more interesting than "Dancing Queen" because it bites jazz fusion rather than 80s synthpop. That being said, it's still far from my favorite.
Overall I'd say I really love maybe 3 songs here and I can reasonably enjoy another 4 or 5. Eight out of ten tracks being good (and more than 2 being great) is a pretty sweet ratio, I'd say, especially when so much of SNSD's career revolved around albums have one or two hit singles and a bunch of filler included to round off album packages.
It's really a shame SNSD went back to their old ways and played it safe after an album like this. There's clearly a lot of potential (and budget) that could have led to some really groundbreaking stuff, perhaps more reasonable and easily palatable than the crazier cuts found here. Still, in all my years of kpop love I haven't found an album that hits like IGAB does in its wilder moments, and for that it's worth a download, I'd say. Enjoy!
DREAM...
Comments
Post a Comment